Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Saving Ethiopia's Wolves

While doing some research on Black-Backed Jackal's today, I rediscovered something I had long ago forgotten...the often mislabeled "Simian Jackal" is actually a wolf. I'd known them as Abyssinian Wolves.
What's more, the Ethiopian Wolf is a highly endangered creature, with likely less than 600 mature adults still inhabiting their home ranges in Afro-Alpine regions of Ethiopia. Threats include habitat loss and fragmentation due to increasing agricultural use of wolf habitat, human conflict, and domestic dogs, through the spreading of diseases which threaten wild wolves and also - Ethiopian Wolves being somewhat smaller and less aggressive than our North American wolves - through cross-breeding with wild or feral dogs.
The Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Programme even has its own blog!
Check it out to help support their efforts to save what is probably the rarest canid species on the planet.

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